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Realistically, Ed is well-aware of the impossibility of perfection. In nature, in humans, it’s analogous to an asymptote, at best; getting close and closer, but never quite there. As a man of science, Ed knows, better than most, of the imperfection in virtually everything.
Imperfections for Mustang, however statistically probable they are, take Ed by surprise, anyway. It’s jarring, somehow, seeing someone who is so superficially flawless have any sort of, well. Flaw. Though it’s only natural, Ed supposes, he still doesn’t know Mustang. Not in any way that really matters. And Ed never spared any mental faculties to Mustang outside of their strange little interactions, either, much less thought about Mustang outside the parameters of their strange little relationship. Didn’t bother, it wasn’t important. Now, however, Ed’s subjected to outside-of-work-Mustang whose demeanour is not all too different – still annoying, but less strict. Less compromised, maybe; just unconstrained enough for the little flaws to seep through the exterior.
One of them is, apparently, being a horrible driver. Horrendous, even. A danger to himself and others and society as a whole with the displayed inadvertence on the road. Mustang swerves too sharply at turns, brakes harshly enough to jostle Ed around in his seat and he does not even manage to drive straight – there is probably a joke in there somewhere, though humour is not exactly on the forefront of Ed’s worries. Ed thinks they ran over four red lights in the last five minutes. Can’t be too sure, though, he’s too busy clinging to his seat belt for dear life and praying to a god he doesn’t believe in.
(“Who was your driver’s instructor?” Ed says through a painfully clenched jaw, barely managing to breathe evenly. “I want to sue them.”
“I never had one instructor for more than two lessons,” Mustang replies casually. “For some reason, they would always pass me along.”
“Can’t imagine why.”)
The drives doesn’t last longer than ten minutes, but it feels like a lifetime. Probably because Ed sees his life flash before his eyes, which may be dramatic, but also justified. Mustang, the bastard, laughs at him and then promises to be more careful on the way back. Ed can’t bring himself to believe him.
Another thing Ed learns is not life-threatening, but definitely dignity-threatening.
Maybe it’s his own fault for letting Al chase him out of the apartment with the vague but effective warning of Mei coming over, and maybe it’s his own fault for not asking, and maybe it’s his own fault for not looking at Mustang and noticing the disgustingly expensive suit that seems to be tailored directly onto his skin, and really, who allowed the fucker to look so good in a boring black suit –
Thing is, Ed is still wearing his leather pants and his combat boots and his plain white shirt, and though he doesn’t care how he looks, usually, because appearances are a social and classist construct invented only for driving societal chasms and to divide, he sure as hell does now.
“I have the distant feeling I’m severely underdressed,” Ed says, after stepping out of the car – after someone held the door open for him –, standing in front of a restaurant that has a red carpet leading towards the double door entrance. If that isn’t masturbatory and pretentious as shit.
Mustang glances over at him from where he stands with the… car guy, or however these people are called who are exclusively employed to park fancy posh cars of fancy posh people. It hits Ed, then, that Mustang is one of these fancy posh people. People Ed has spent years despising. His throat closes up a little at that, the realization lodged in the back of his throat.
“I think you look lovely,” Mustang says, and drags his gaze very deliberately and embarrassingly appreciatively over Ed. “Very lovely.”
“Of course, you do, you have awful taste,” Ed says and wrinkles his nose at the red carpet and the double door entrance and everything in general.
“Excuse me, I have exquisite taste,” Mustang protests, stepping up to Ed. “You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”
Ed huffs at the thick flattery, because it is annoying and he’s not used to it, but also because it’s easier than to acknowledge the fluttering behind his rips. “Debatable.”
“We can debate all you want over food,” Mustang says and offers up his arm, elegant and flawless and polite. Ed doesn’t take it. Mustang lowers his arm. “Is something the matter, Edward?”
“Don’t call me that,” Ed says, completely on auto-pilot, because arguing is his default even when extremely overwhelmed.
“What do you suggest I call you then?” Mustang asks, and there is a smirk in his intonation, something suggestive and inviting. Ed doesn’t answer. “Ed? I’m starting to get concerned.”
“I really don’t think I’m dressed for this,” Ed says, but he means I don’t fit, here and I don’t fit with you, Mustang and he wants to punch him in the throat for bringing him here. Wants to punch himself, for allowing it in the first place. He so far out of his comfort zone, which really only consists of his apartment and his place of business, where it simply doesn’t matter how Ed looks, with his questionable fashion choices and his messy hair. Where it doesn’t matter who Ed is, outside of his achievements and his accomplishments and his intelligence, even with all the eccentricities and neurotic tendencies that come with him.
Presentation does not matter as much as substance, there, and he is respected for who he is, for how he is, if a little reluctantly. Here it does, it matters; money, social rank, all mirrored in poise and demeanour. All things Ed decidedly does not have. Doesn’t care to have, normally, because it’s all conceited bullshit, anyway. Like playing chess with people you don’t know, strategically trying to one-up one another, silently screaming Look at me and my money and respect me because of it.
“Edward,” Mustang says, low and serious and too close to Ed’s ear. “You are dressed perfectly fine, exactly how you are right now. And if anyone dares to look at you like you’re not the most perfectly dressed person there, I will accidentally spill red wine onto them.”
Ed snaps his eyes from disdainfully staring at the embodiment of everything he hates – exorbitant, expensive, exuberant – to stare slightly less disdainfully at Mustang instead. Mustang seems nothing if not dead-serious, like he would really dump wine over some rich douche to defend Ed’s, whatever. Honour, or something. Somehow, it seems like a thing Mustang would do, though Ed isn’t sure how he knows that.
“I can throw wine at people myself,” Ed says. Mustang exhales a little laugh through his nose, and it sounds like relief and tension leaving his body. “Lead the way then.”
This time, when Mustang offers his arm, Ed takes it.
xx.
“Wouldn’t you need a reservation for a place like this?”
As soon as both halves of the entrance were opened for them – which made Ed snort and Mustang laugh loudly –, they were immediately led into the dining hall by a waiter dressed in black, to a table that was set and had too many forks and knives.
“You do, yes,” Mustang says, and, at Ed tilting his head imploringly, ducks his head. Smiles guiltily, and Ed’s brain stutters for a moment before realization dawns on him.
“You made a reservation,” he says, not making it sound like a question. Mustang smiles that little smile again that speaks of an apology, and Ed wonders briefly when exactly he started to differentiate Mustang’s micro-expressions. “How’d you know that I’d agree?”
“I didn’t,” Mustang says, with a glint in his eyes. “I merely hoped.”
Hands folded together neatly on the table, posture straight, a perfect mimicry of the first time they met, Mustang looks at Ed over the table. He’s probably under the assumption that it makes him look respectable and hot or whatever, and it does. Or it would, were it literally any other person besides Edward Elric sitting in front of him, because for Ed, personally, respectable means arrogant, sycophantic, hypocritical. Respectable means fake, and he’s not here to see any more of Mustang’s –
“Drop the smarmy bastard act,” Ed says – demands, really, because how dare Mustang try that shit with him again? Allowing Ed to see through the layers of professionalism, letting him see the dork with a crooked sense of humour, giving him glimpses of what is underneath, and then closing off again.
“Ah, you noticed,” Mustang says, and he has the decency of looking sheepishly apologetic. Ed cocks an eyebrow at him, like he does when Al says something obvious and stupid. Mustang sighs. At least now he unfolds his hands, rubs them at his slacks, and suddenly, he looks like Mustang again; slightly nervous and unsure and so much better. “It’s more of a… performance, really. One that is difficult to strip off when work is done.”
Ed snorts, inelegant and harsh. “Can’t imagine. I’ve never changed a single thing for work.”
“Which is admirable,” Mustang says, and he says it like he means it. Like he truly believes anything about Ed could be commendable or – or good, in any way.
Ed snorts again. “It’s not. Got almost fired a few times, because, apparently, I didn’t exactly fit the part of a serious role model for the kids. Still don’t but the higher-ups have realized there’s no one else to do my job.”
“You say kids like they aren’t only some years younger than you,” Mustang says. It is just like him to pick apart the semantics of Ed’s vernacular.
“Most of them are older than me,” Ed says, and watches Mustang’s eyes widen, his eyebrows arch. It is strangely enjoyable to cause new little expressions on Mustang’s carefully regulated face. “It’s no big deal, though. I’m just unusually young – which, y’know, makes sense, having started university sooner than normal.”
“How much sooner is sooner?”
“Fifteen,” Ed says, and Mustang’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “Don’t – look at me like that. Highschool was boring, so I tried… something harder. And it just took, I guess.”
“If you are trying to minimalize my admiration for you, you are doing a horrible job,” Mustang says, and, the thing is, he does look slightly awestruck and a bit incredulous. It reminds Ed of his students’ faces when he first walks in at the start of a new year and doesn’t sit down with the rest of them in the rows of the auditorium, but instead steps up to the podium and starts introductions.
“I’m not exactly known for being bad at anything,” Ed agrees, trying for faux-arrogant, but Mustang just nods along seriously. Like he really thinks that there is not a single possible thing Ed would be unskilled in. It is… nice. It’s also dangerous for his ego, so he does what he always does when something scratches uncomfortably close at the line of insecurity and hauteur – he redirects. “Can’t say the same about you, though. Helping a criminal out all the time, didn’t you take a vow or something?”
“Like the Hippocratic oath?”
“Exactly! I vow not to let any evil roam this city any longer, or some shit.”
“Are we in Gotham City?” Mustang laughs, and god, he is a nerd. Somehow, it is wholly unsurprising and really fucking endearing. “If anything, I would say it makes me a better cop by not abiding the law too directly.”
“No, that makes you contradictive,” Ed says.
“You are not wrong, exactly,” Mustang agrees. “But some laws are… how would you say it?”
“Fucking stupid.”
“Yes, that,” Mustang says, ever diplomatic, not verbally confirming nor denying, although this does not seem like Mustang’s usual script of political ambiguity. The activistic teenager in Ed rears his head, proud in having, maybe, something to do with that. Corrupting a cop should not be that pleasing, but it sort of really is. Though maybe it’s just Mustang. “Especially when they get pretty university professors into trouble.”
“You help all pretty university professors?”
“Just one,” Mustang says, lips slanting into an honest – beautiful, gorgeous – smile before evening out again. “But I do, indeed, have a habit of… assisting.”
The waiter brings wine and two tall glasses. After a second of very insulting hesitation, he sets one of them in front of Ed. Ed ignores being offended in favour of scrutinizing Mustang.
“Assisting, huh? With what?”
“Well,” Mustang says slowly, after nodding at the waiter and waves him away to pour the wine himself. “There have been some instances of… wrongful detainment, you could say.”
Ed frowns at the heavily over-pronounced word. “Law-wise?”
“Consciousness-wise,” Mustang says, and it’s the most forward confirmation he’s ever given, for all he likes to talk himself in circles around what he means in actuality but cannot say directly. “Young people get arrested for youthful mistakes; people get punished for doing what they have to for survival; people get their future ruined by a little entry into the database. I simply do not endorse that.”
“And your non-endorsement is enough?”
“I spent years working my way up to where I am now just so it does,” Mustang says, nonchalantly swirling the wine in his glass, like he didn’t just say the noblest fucking thing Ed’s ever heard.
Like he didn’t just admit misappropriating his position – whatever that might be, Ed’s yet to ask, but it seems to be high-ranking with no small amount of authority – to help the same people he is paid to arrest. Like he didn’t just covertly criticise his whole profession, the flawed system that he works for, and then admitted to using it to his advantage. Like he didn’t just hand Ed the opportunity to ruin his life, trusting that he won’t. And Ed will not, of course, because he is no snitch, but also because –
Because Mustang is, apparently, a decent fucking person. Who assists in cases he considers, what? Unfair? Unjust? Who is aware of his privilege and his power, and then turns around to use it for something good. Has worked for it just so he can help.
Something swells and uncurls and warms in Ed’s chest, buzzing under his skin, creeping down to his fingertips, scolding and burning, and it feels like respect and admiration and. And something else that Ed is not yet ready to put a name on.
“I’ll drink to that,” Ed says, swallowing down the sentimental and sticky feeling in his throat. He raises his glass towards Mustang. “To repudiation of wrongful detainment.”
Their glasses clink together, and it sounds like truce, like armistice. Like the start of something new.
xx.
“You need to get out more, brother. Meet people, have fun!” Al said, one year into Ed’s academical career. He had his reasons, Ed knows now, one of them being the guilt that Ed spent every free minute not working or studying with him, in their tiny old apartment, instead of hanging out with his peers at university. Al felt bad, under the impression he was holding Ed back from having friends, which was both heart-breaking and stupid.
“People aren’t fun, Al,” Ed said, and he meant it. He had Al, and Al was his best friend, and he was perfectly content with that. Has been, ever since that short-lived half-conversation that ended with Al sighing in resignment.
That opinion hasn’t changed. People are, and he is being grossly generalising, not fun; they are boring and uninteresting and annoying, and if Ed had the option, he would not deal with others. At all. Ever. Would live happily as a recluse with his books and his work and keep himself far away of social norms and expectations and interpersonal relationships that are never worth it.
Ed’s opinion hasn’t changed, because he is very opinionated and stubborn and he likes to think that he’s always correct in his assessments, but – but maybe his opinion is shifting. Just a little bit. Tilting from its deadlocked position, slightly to the left.
Because people may be boring and uninteresting and annoying, but Mustang is not people, exactly. Mustang is so far from boring and uninteresting and – well, he is annoying, to a disconcerting extent and Ed is sure it is on purpose at least half the time, but Ed can deal with annoying. Has to, with Al and Winry in his life.
With every passing moment, the discomfort of being so out of place, the awkwardness of this maybe-sort-of-kinda date, the tension in every single muscle in Ed’s body making him ready to bolt – it all bleeds away. The quiet but insistent murmuring of the restaurant grows distant and far away, until it is no more than white noise and TV static in the background, and all Ed really hears is Mustang’s voice. Deep and smooth and captivating.
Mustang tells him about his time in the military – the mere notion making Ed click his tongue in distaste –, how he was honourably discharged and how he thinks nothing about his time there was honourable. It makes Ed snort and say I bet, and Mustang laughs in agreement, saying that the only good thing coming out of his military draft was meeting Maes and the blonde woman Ed saw at the police station, the one he likes from afar and now has a name for – Riza, a very sharp name, fitting for a seemingly very sharp personality – and the unbelievably wild stories resulting in their newly found friendship.
(“– and so, don’t ask me how, Maes befriended a soldier on the other side, through, and I quote him directly, the power of love,” Mustang finishes, hilariously imitating his friend, and Ed almost snorts wine through his nose with ill-timed laughter.
“I know you asked me not to, but – how?”
“I think they bonded over talking about their girlfriends waiting for them back home,” Mustang says, and he rolls his eyes, but Ed sees fondness in it.)
In exchange, because Ed believes in equivalence and fairness, he shares personal anecdotes of his own unconventionally formed friendships. Tells him about Winry, how they met when Ed was eleven and missing two limbs, and Winry, not much older, insisted on building him prosthetics with a truly discomfiting enthusiasm.
(“I didn’t know her, mind you,” Ed says, and Mustang is so attentive, it almost makes him stutter. “Imagine my surprise having a strange girl run up to me on the street and trying to convince me she would make me artificial limbs. For free.”
Mustang nods, as though he innately understands the suspicion of anything good happening without a price. He probably does.
“Turns out,” Ed continues, “Her grandmother – who runs a garage-shop-thing, for, well, everything, including prosthetics – told her she was too young for business, and therefore couldn’t work on clients just yet. So, Winry, smart little devil that she was, made it her mission to find her very own client.”
“She sounds like a riot,” Mustang laughs, freely and openly, and Ed can’t help but revel in the sound of it, indulging himself. Mustang gesticulates vaguely at Ed’s gloved hand on the table, metal shining from under his sleeve. “A very skilled riot, but a riot, nonetheless.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Ed says, pride climbing into his voice unasked. “She’s untouched in her field of expertise. When she met her girlfriend, Paninya, she’s missing both her legs, she could barely walk, Winry nearly cried at the quality of the–”)
Despite what Ed liked to believe, at the beginning, when he didn’t know Mustang and only saw his smirk and his arrogance and the blue uniform, Ed knows to admit when he is wrong, and fuck, was he wrong about Mustang. Because – Mustang is so much more than Ed thought he was, although he is too smug for his own good and overly confident and irritating with his stupid smile and his stupidly attractive bone structure and –
That’s not the point. Point is, Mustang is more, although he is already enough.
(“I studied chemistry, before I got drafted. And then I went to the police academy, because – well, I already had the basic training and I thought I could help more people as a cop than a chemist,” Mustang says, to which Ed replies, “You fucking did not.” And then they throw themselves into a discussion about the environmental benefits of the AI-invented enzyme that can eat plastic.)
Mustang is facetted, a multitude of interesting things, layers upon layers and each one is more fascinating than the last, and peeling them back becomes addictive. Mustang is a multiplicity of interesting little facts, and Ed, who gets bored and restless so quickly, cannot stop himself from picking apart and cataloguing every new information. Collects the pieces Mustang offers of himself and tries to fit them together in the mental image Ed has of him.
Mustang likes documentaries about the ocean, and Ed calls him a nerd and then admits preferring documentaries about the universe. Mustang studied chemistry but minored in socio-economy because he thought, naively but adorably, he could learn how to improve the world. Mustang can’t eat spicy food, and Ed laughs at him. Mustang only enlisted in the military because of the money and the health insurance and because his aunt was sick. Mustang prefers dark chocolate but ordered a complicated vanilla-fruit-cake just so Ed can try two desserts on the menu without having to ask. Mustang has read half the university library with a preference for sci-fi thrillers, and they laugh about the inaccuracies together and how they could be fixed.
Talking to Mustang is easy, and it’s rewarding, and it’s challenging, because he’s intelligent and he keeps up with Ed’s constant stream of ever-changing topics. It’s fun, sitting here with Mustang, dessert long gone, most other patrons already filtered out, and when Mustang asks for the bill, Ed realizes he doesn’t want it to end.
And isn’t that a revelation. Ed doesn’t like people, usually, and he doesn’t like socializing, and – Mustang’s different. Isn’t he? Mustang’s so different; being with him doesn’t drain Ed, doesn’t give him a headache, doesn’t make him want to split open his skull on the nearest sharp edge. Quite the opposite, really, and isn’t that worrying and disgusting.
Somewhere between getting arrested and getting bailed out, between the forced conversations and the voluntary ones, Ed went from hating Mustang on principle to liking him.
Ed’s fucked.
xx.
The drive back is not any more pleasant, but Mustang rests his hand on Ed’s knee, the metal one that is too hard and too cold, but Mustang doesn’t seem to mind. Ed watches pale, long, beautiful fingers rub against his leather pants and the facsimile of a leg, and although he can’t feel it, it makes heat rise up his neck all the same. Mustang hums along to an old song terribly off-key, outwardly oblivious, but there is a self-satisfied edge to his easy smile, and Ed knows the bastard knows exactly what he’s doing.
When they arrive in front of Ed’s shitty apartment complex, he’s out the car before the engine is turned off.
“You are being dramatic,” Mustang says, closing the door behind him.
“No, you are a terrible driver,” Ed spits back, barely resisting the urge to kiss the solid ground beneath his feet. “I’m not being dramatic enough.”
Mustang laughs, and it resonates into the stillness of the late evening. Ed watches him, how he stands under the golden shine of the streetlamps, how he laughs in the same way he’s done throughout the whole evening, light and open and a little startled, like he hasn’t had a reason to for a long time. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe Ed gets to ask, in the future.
Now, this is enough.
“Mustang–”
“Roy.”
“What?”
“Call me Roy,” Mustang says, and no one should sound so good saying their own damn name. “Please.”
“Huh. Okay. Roy,” Ed says, enunciating the name, tasting it on his tongue. Mustang’s – Roy’s eyes widen, as does his smile, and that’s interesting. “Now what?”
“Now…” Mustang says, slowly and carefully, while stepping in close to Ed, offering up his arm again. It’s ridiculous and stupid and a little charming, and Ed – takes it. “I’ll walk you to your doorstep. I’ll tell you how much I enjoyed our date.” Ed’s heart does not skip at that, it doesn’t. “And I’ll beg for a second one.”
“You don’t have to beg,” Ed says, although Mustang begging does sound – no. Absolutely not. “You can ask, like a non-crazy person, and maybe I’ll even say yes.”
“How gracious of you,” Mustang says, smirks side-ways down at Ed.
“I know, I know; I’m a saint,” Ed agrees.
The doorstep comes too soon, and hesitation has Ed holding onto Roy, not too sure how to proceed. Thankfully, Roy does not comment on it – verbally, that is, as his eyebrow quirks up, curious and expectant, but that is easy enough to brush off.
“So,” Ed says.
“So,” Roy says.
Ed stares. Roy stares back.
“C’mon, don’t let me be awkward,” Ed groans and finally unlatches his grip on Roy’s arm to run his hand through his hair instead. “This is the first time I’m doing this.”
“It… is?” Mustang blinks, slow and perplexed.
Ed nods. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”
“Quite lucky for you, I’m somewhat of an expert,” Mustang says. Ed rolls his eyes. “There are really only two options here – either promise me a second date, if you want, or send me to hell.”
“Can I send you to hell but still get that second date?”
Mustang smiles, amused and soft. “Anything you want.”
xx.
When Ed walks through the door of their apartment, Al is sitting on the sofa, and Mei is nowhere in sight. Because Al is, as stated previously and will be stated continuously until the day Ed dies, a little piece of shit.
“I can assume you made peace with fraternizing with the police, huh?”
Ed tackles him, and Al laughs. Ed laughs with him – though not without elbowing him into the rips, of course.